Cute Pretty Chipmunk?
by Raineisahuman
Summary: James gets himself into an uncomfortable and vaguely embarrassing situation, and ends up ruining the morning of various prefects all over the school. So much for Saturday, and it isn't even eight yet.
1. Chapter 1

I own nothing, I disclaim it all!

On a hideously early morning at Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, one James Potter found himself rather rudely awoken from his dreamy state with the realization that the Headmaster himself was staring at him, apparently waiting for an answer on something.

He had been woken up today by Remus, with the knowledge that the Head Boy and Head Girl had a meeting to attend in the office of Dumbledore with the man himself. At five a.m. With the wisdom one can only achieve in the early morning, James logically blamed the Slytherins. Duh. Was there ever a time when it DIDN'T work to blame a Slytherin?

"Er, a yeah. I agree with Lily." He let his eyes slide back to her and drifted into incoherence again. Lily. So pretty. He had absolutely no idea what the topic of discussion was, but he did know that Lily always seemed to have an opinion, and she tended to be right, so, you know, how bad could this turn out?

Ten minutes later James was cursing every single thing that had ever gone wrong in his seventeen years of life, and decided to blame a random Slytherin for his current misery.

Hey! There's one! I blame Malfoy!

"I blame Malfoy!"

He exclaimed this rather loudly, gaining an incredulous look from the fifth year prefect also working on markering posters advertising the EVIL, malicious plot that Lily had suggested to the Headmaster. Which was Malfoy's fault, because of course it couldn't be Lily's fault. So pretty…

"Well, I blame you, James. Lily couldn't have pushed this through without your approval, you know. What were you thinking!?"

James stared rather blankly at the younger student. He didn't even know the kid's name. "Look, er, a" He decided to go for it. "Roger." He picked a name at random. "Yeah, the politics and details of the rather complicated arrangement that the Head Girl and I have agreed upon are too lengthy and involved to get into now."

The kid looked suitably pacified and just a little bit awed at this glance into the complicated world of the older students. He quietly demurred a "Oh, sorry man." and went back to making those perfectly shaped C's and A's with a sharpie. …That's it? Whew, I guess he won't call me on that. I have no idea how this even happened. Huh. Weird shit happens.

"You are so full of it!" Remus cackled from the other side of the room where the prefect was creating lists of activities and James didn't even know what else. "I bet you just stared at Lily the whole meeting, didn't hear what she suggested, and blindly agreed to this hell in order to get on her good side."

Twas true.

"Did not!" James exclaimed hurtfully. He saw the disbelieving look on his friend's face. James stopped and reconsidered. "Well, yeah, I did." Was there anything else he could have done? "She's just so pretty, you'd do the same, I bet!" Ignoring the betrayed expression on the face of the younger child he had decided to call Roger and the girlish giggles and chuckles coming from the end table where Remus worked along with a pretty sixth-year Ravenclaw prefect, James resumed his frantic scribbling. Despite the vague unsettling feeling in his stomach at the fact that that his friend had read him so efficiently, he had other things on his mind. He had been promised a return to bed if he got this job done quickly.

He stood and stretched. James narrowed his brown eyes at the poster that vexed him so. It was a weird material even, not parchment. Lily had supplied it, she said it was a muggle thing. It was still weird. He evaluated his own work. How bad did it look, passable? Probably, he decided. Arms over his head, James sauntered slowly in the direction of the entrance of the Great Hall that would take him back to his nice, warm, soft…

Lily Evans found herself wondering why this was really necessary. With a long suffering sigh the esteemed Head Girl bent to her knees and shook the sleeping figure into semi-wakefulness. She hoped.

"Potter!" She hissed, rather annoyed. "It's not that early that you need to fall asleep on the floor, is it? Really, what drugs are you on? This is not cool!" His head lolled to one side and a muscle in his face twitched. Lily found herself suddenly repressing a giggle. Really, he was hopeless, but with his hair drifting over his oddly expressionless face in that slow way, he was also hopelessly cute. He also looked less like the insanely hyper stalker/prankster/chipmunk she knew he was.

She blinked, surprised at the oddness of that last thought. Chipmunk? She justified her own thought with a harsh expellation of air-turned-carbon-dioxide. Well, he was awfully cute, and he DID have that violent way of exploding into motion to perform dozens of different, seemingly useless tasks that entertained him endlessly. Yeah. Chipmunk. Lily contemplated this silently. Wow. Deep. I actually analyzed his personality. I can't believe I noticed that about him… God, wouldn't it be funny if that were his animagus form?

She couldn't stop the bubble of laughter at this train of thought. She thought wildly, no, he would never stand for it. He'd have the pompous need to be some overly masculine animal, one that had an obvious distinction between the males and females. After all, James spent so much of his time posturing and pretending to be so manly to impress girls he'd need an animagus form that displayed this tendency. Like a peacock.

A lion, maybe? She dismissed the thought. God, no, they lie around all day with none of the frantic, jerky motion James was so accustomed to. It really was funny, the way everyone mooned over James, exclaimed that he was so graceful on a broom, when in fact, James had absolutely no grace of motion whatsoever. He was wild energy, bounding into a restless chase or escape on a pitch, eyes darting everywhere for a better path, an endless dervish of unpredictable motion with a Quaffle.

James awoke to see the smiling face of the girl he so unabashedly chased. He started, and jumped to his feet as best as he could, face burning in the realization that he had fallen asleep on the floor of the entranceway to the Great Hall and been found by his crush. Oh, he was never going to live this down.

She, unfortunately, had not yet fallen for his amazing charm, good looks and personality and seemed to take a perverse delight in embarrassing him in front of his friends. She was close enough to Remus that James was sure the incident would in fact come back to haunt him, probably as soon as later that night.

"I, uh, yeah, hi Lily!" He blurted out.

Smooth. Real smooth.

Oh, god, here it comes. That mocking smile that is still SO cute, a cutting rejoinder, maybe even a crack about his hair-he flattened it self-consciously-, and then would come the taunting of Sirius when the incident made it back to him. He could see the incredulous expression now. You did what!? Where!? And the girl you're crushing on woke you up!? You are such a loser! With this thought, James sunk even farther into absolute despair. He watched Lily with slow horror. He didn't really want to know how she would deign to humiliate him this time, but he had to watch her do it. It was like watching a train crash. A really pretty train crash...

He looked positively heartbroken. Watching him, Lily felt a stab ot pity. She made a split second decision to give him a break. You know, for once.

"Hey James" she said smoothly as she rose to her feet. "You probably should make it back to your dorm. I guess I'm sorry I scheduled the meeting so early this morning. Can I walk you back to the common room? I have something I need to grab there" She fibbed easily without a catch in her voice, enjoying the abject horror, shock, and absolute bliss that whisked over his features. He had just looked so…doomed, staring at her in the most miserable expression; she just had to throw him a frickin bone.

Besides, he still was the cutest chipmunk she'd ever seen.

James floated on a cloud of perfect happiness all the way back to the dorms, not even wondering why when the girl of his dreams broke into wrenching giggles that she quickly recovered from, accompanied him to the staircase that led to the boys' dorms, and eventually left the Common Room without fetching anything at all from her dorm.


	2. Chapter 2

I disclaim all that is on this page.

"Are they serious? I cannot be made to do such a thing. I will not."

"This is ridiculous! My father will hear of this travesty."

"Whose bright idea was that? Maybe we could, I don't know, have a dance or something instead."

"I think it sounds like a lot of fun, personally. I mean, class competitions? Come on, don't you wanna stick it to the upperclassmen?"

From her position behind the podium Lily sighed. "Thank you Sirius, for your uplifting endorsement of our newest tradition. Words for the ages, those are." At the grin she saw flash across his face, Lily remembered something. "Hang on; this is a Prefect's meeting. You don't belong here, Black."

Titters swept the length of the small classroom the Prefects had commandeered. A hurt look of shock crossed his features, which then went completely expressionless. Sirius stood up with that same curiously straight face and walked dignifully to the exit, where he then jerked into a right-about, saluted Lily, and practically bellowed "Yes Sir! Sir, yes sir! Dismissed?" and promptly left without waiting for her answer. Which was good, because Lily wasn't paying him any attention anymore.

She found her eyes sweeping slowly over the scene-a previously unused classroom filled to the brim with twenty-four prefects, herself, and the Head Boy James, who was currently engaged in pining for Sirius in a very theatrical manner. Lily vaguely heard loud, fakey sobs and a "WHY RODRIGUEZ, WHY?!" and she decided not to ask. Ever.

Lily came to a quick realization. She had just announced to all present of her idea for the mandatory school bonding the teachers had decided was in order after a particularly nasty encounter of the violent kind between a Hufflepuff and a Slytherin, oddly enough. Her classmates hadn't taken the news all that well. This is what led her to notice something curious.

The students had seemingly reacted in the stages of grief. Lucius was the anger, Narcissa the condescending tone of denial, a sixth year prefect Lily vaguely identified as something or other Bones was bargaining. Acceptance would have to go to Sirius, of course. Lily snorted in a very undignified manner.

She could just see her classmates going through grief. She reflected wickedly upon the possibility that Lucius had a funeral outfit similar to that of one of her relatives. Unfortunately, the homely black lace dress wouldn't suit his complexion at all, but Lily could just picture the snotty jerk in Great Aunt May's floppy old raggedy flowered hat. Yeah, just pop on some really obvious blush and tackily bright orange lipstick, and he'd be ready to go!

Of course, his whiny girlfriend would need an outfit to match. Lily really hated Narcissa.

She suddenly felt quite a bit more prepared to speak to the now-rowdy crowd. She wiped her hands on the legs of her trousers and stepped back up to the podium. The small audience wasn't really paying that much attention, but she started anyways. "Hey, people. Let's focus a little bit here, so we can get on with our lives and maybe even make it to dinner on time."

That got their attention.

"Right. So, you all know of the…incident, and I'm sure you are all aware that a few of our teachers have decided upon an appropriate disciplinary action. They seem to feel that it is necessary to do something to promote house unity. I'm really sorry if there was anyone who was really holding out for the bake sale suggestion, but due to the fact that it wouldn't help anything, the idea was, er, shot down rather quickly. Anyways, class competitions are what James and I as the Heads have agreed upon, so if this solution ticks you off, bug him about it, not me. Thank you, and yes, it will affect the whole school. Any questions?"

Lily pointed to the Bones girl who first name she still couldn't remember for the life of her. "Yes?"

Amelia stood with a nervous expression. She stared at the floor as she mumbled in a rather dejected manner, "So... No bake sale. Does this mean no cupcakes?"

Lily blinked. "Er, yeah, I guess it does. Sorry about that again." She vaguely wondered if all of these people were complete idiots. Judging by the outraged look on Lucius's face at the horrible combination of the words "no" and "cupcakes", Lily assumed there was a fair chance that they were. Her case in point then stood up in the back row and screeched at her, pointing a finger all the while.

"She hates cupcakes! She's keeping us down, can't you see? This is an outrage! I will certainly not be helping her in any endeavor that isn't cupcake related. Incite rebellion! Rise, my fellow oppressed, and tear down the walls of confinement! We will have justice, there will be blood, and I will get my cupcakes! Come!"

Lily blinked in a sort of hazy disbelief at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. "Sirius, I already kicked you out once this meeting. Do I need to trick some poor underclassmen into walking you all the way back to Gryffindor tower and tuck you into bed?"She was mostly hoping that he would say something stupid and just leave on his own, with no further effort required on her part.

He looked properly sheepish. "I'm lonely. I forgot what it is that I do when I don't have someone to talk to." Lily dully reflected upon just how pathetic he looked right now with a feeling of resignment sinking into the pit of her stomach.

"You can stay. But no talking, girlish squealing, hugging, laughing, smiling, breathing, or looking at me. It creeps me out." The rest of the room looked rather surprised at her…extensive list of requirements, which were rattled off as if second nature. Narcissa Black, sitting in the second to last row of desks, found herself wondering if the list of "don'ts" would impediment Sirius at all in his never-ending quest to become the most annoying person in the world. She doubted it.

They didn't. Sirius strode happily to the front of the room, sat on James's lap (he had fallen asleep) and started humming a mangled and disturbingly off-pitched Christmas carol.

Lily rolled her eyes. Jingle Bells was only so entertaining the first twenty times. Now Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer; that was a classic. It probably should have been made the national anthem. It was bubbly and happy, and cutesy and just about the most amazing thing ever! Except for toast. Oh, god, Lily loved toast.

Right. Back to business. "James, Remus, Cynthia. I need the progress you three made this morning. Everybody, James volunteered to be in charge of making posters explaining to everyone that class is out on Tuesday, for the event. Remus and Cynthia got to work on designing the day's activities already, using mostly Muggle games, and everyone else has a job as well. Tonight in your common rooms you need to record the names of every single student and list what events they will take place in. The competition will work by a process of elimination."

"For example, the four houses of, say, fifth year will compete in certain events, and the winner of the four houses gets to compete against the other years. The ultimate winning group scores an amount of house points. I hate to point this out, but whatever house wins the competitions will likely win the house cup. The points are just too close for anyone to win without the grand prize."

Lily took a step back from a podium. She surveyed the audience with a tired look. She really hoped no one would object any farther, as she just didn't want to deal with the hassle. She had been working on this idea for quite a while, as she was pretty sure that her counterpart in the head meeting hadn't even noticed Dumbledore give them yet another job to complete. James was always out of it lately, in some sort of sleepy daze whenever Lily saw him. It was just a little bit worrying, the way his eyes glazed over whenever he spoke to her, and the constant redness on his face.

James didn't even tease her anymore. They had never really gotten along when they were younger, and Lily had believed this year would be no different. James always teased her, it was what he did. He would pretend to ask her out, send her fake love letters, and just generally harass her. This year had been different. Lily was almost…worried for him.

Luckily, silence followed the announcement. The room slowly emptied as first Narcissa, and then several younger prefects swept out of the room, stopping only to pick a list of the activities from Remus who waited by the door. With a feeling of relief Lily made her way down past the teacher's desk, and stopped in front of Sirius.

"Sirius, did you drug James or what?" He looked up at her impishly when she spoke from where he was still on a sleeping James's lap. He wiggled around, trying for a reaction. James still sat limply, his hands on his lap (and under Sirius) looking like he hadn't noticed a thing.

"Nope, but someone must have. He's always tired lately. I have no clue why. He's just weird."

"You know, I found him asleep just this morning in the Great Hall. Not even during breakfast or anything, he just apparently felt tired walking through the entranceway and decided to nap on the floor. I think you may want to tighten the leash on him, he's definitely sick with something. He hasn't harassed me in almost a month. You should definitely drag him down to see the nurse."


	3. Chapter 3

**I own nothing, said me.**

Sirius let out a little laugh as he watched the poor, clueless Head Girl leave the meeting room, presumable to retreat back to the rather dubious sanctuary of her dorm room (her room mates were really annoying). That conversation had confirmed his suspicions once and for all: Lily really didn't know that James loved her so much. Sirius had half feared she had been pretending not to notice James' attention just so that she didn't have to reject him. Apparently she wasn't cruel, just oblivious.

Sirius supposed he could see how Lily had missed the obvious looks (to everyone else) of adoration that James bestowed on her. She just didn't know him well enough to realize that he was acting unusually. For years, because of her obvious love for rules and order Lily had been James' target of choice for silly pranks, and on more than one occasion James had found motivation to do something dramatic like declare his undying love and affection to her at the train stop, or send her a ten-minute howler of himself giggling in a high pitched voice, or something equally vile but hilarious.

As it turned out, Lily had been especially disturbed by the fake confession of his feelings for her. So disturbed in fact that James kept up the act, just to irritate her. At least, at first it was to irritate her. Sometime in the middle of third year James had actually started to crush on her for real, and the seed of affection grew wildly to eventually become a full-blown thorn in his style.

The end result was that James was now totally besotted with Ms. Evans, and had no idea how to have a real conversation with her after practically having been the bane of her existence for, what, six years? The life of a prankster hadn't done James many favors in the ladies department. Sure, he was good-looking and semi-intelligent, but he was just plain unused to talking to most girls in depth, unless of course it was about Quidditch (the most amazing sport in the world). So after he became Head Boy and had been threatened "under pain of death" (ie, no care packages with the cookies he loved so much) by his mother not to lose his badge, he had abruptly changed his attitude towards his classmates in an attempt to appear more mature.

Hence forth, Lily seemed to have believed that James miraculously grew up and lost all interest in bugging her over the course of the summer break. Sirius knew James a little better and was a bit amazed that Lily had gotten that misconception, but, hey, not his problem.

Except that it was. James no longer denied he really had drastic feelings for Lily and mooned over her all of the time. Sirius honestly didn't remember when the last day was that James hadn't been melancholy over the pretty girl who didn't notice him. A friend like that was no fun. More importantly, a friend like that was much less likely to help him break into the Slytherin common room and annoy his distant relatives in the one place they counted safe from him. Sirius glanced around suspiciously, making sure the room was devoid of sentient life (James was asleep, he didn't count) and he let forth an evil laugh, Reflecting, he noted that the evil laugh was coming along nicely. Sirius Black would be prepared if the appropriate situation for an evil chuckle came along. Oh, yes, watch yourself. One day soon, he will out laugh them all! Ha, Ha! Ha! Ha!

Ha. Well, that was fun, but it's over now. Sirius stood up and stretched his arms out. He had just learned that James made a surprisingly comfortable chair, but there was no neck support at all. Tsk, tsk, what a shame. He contemplated the possible time. He had a rather important destination in mind (also known as the wonderful room of FOOD), and not a lot of time to get there.

"Oy, chair! Get up! Time for you to go back to the dorms, Prongs!" As James didn't stir, Sirius rather wickedly smiled, and grabbed the back of James' chair, and pulled sharply. Just a moment later he stored away in his memory for future reference the exact sound James' head made when it bounced off of the hard floor. It was a satisfying _clunk, _but it paled in comparison to the strangled "Gar!" that informed him his friend had awoken.

"Ah, have a good nap, Prongsie boy? Is that all you do now, sleep? Like, you know, in awkward places like the floor of the great hall?" James was turning a remarkable shade of pink, considering just how recently he had been asleep. "I am heading off to get my supper, but nurse Evans informs me that you have been acting so very strangely that she has become worried, and that perhaps you should get yourself checked into the care of the dragon lady who runs the 

infirmary with a fist of iron. Maybe you should, as you obviously can't even pay attention to the most interesting of your friends. Your best friend, as a matter of fact. You know, the guy that you've been ignoring."

It really was such a waste that James only noticed such a small portion of his statement.

"She was worried about me? Lily?"

Ten minutes later James sat at the opposite side of Remus from Sirius, still nursing a bruised shoulder from an incident he would never again mention, except to bemoan just how much he really despised fruit juice and rodents. Remus had yet to figure out how the two were connected in anyway, much less how either was relevant to the triangular indention that even now turned a darker shade of purple on his friend's upper arm. He decided not to ask. Indeed, many of the better decisions involving those two involved the act of not questioning their activities.

The great hall was mostly empty by this time, as the prefect meeting had run late and James and Sirius had run even later. Not that Sirius noticed. He had found a cute girl eying him from across the room.

"Hey, Remus. Who's that chick there, the bird with the ponytail and big earrings?"

Remus glanced over the tables to where Sirius was indicating. "Her? She's that one Ravenclaw chaser, that Knowles girl. I think that she's a fifth year. Why?"

Sirius left the table without providing an answer but Remus understood quickly enough as he watched the girl be escorted out giggling hand in hand with the tall boy. Remus's eyes flickered at his watch, mentally recording the time so that he could confirm the bet between James and him over the amount of time that it would take Sirius to get bored of the new girl. Remus had seventeen minutes on record. James disagreed. He bet on twenty two.

And Sirius said his best friend had little faith in him.

Sighing, Remus looked at his other friend in despair. Peter had gotten called home for a relative's funeral, something Remus found ironic as he had used that same excuse so many times on Peter when he was still ignorant of Remus's lycanthropy. It was almost like Peter was lying to him, and wanted him to figure it out. However, Remus wasn't sure Peter would think of that, much less want to lie to him.

Remus shook James' arm and dragged the once-again sleeping boy to his feet. The two walked back to the common room in silence, and went separate ways once inside. Remus went to his One True Love, the essay he had been working on for the past week. Thankfully it was at the stage where he was simply revising and checking spelling. That was especially good as the report was due in only three days.

James however, was asleep on Peter's bed of all things. Remus suspected it was because it was closest to the door.

The friends were actually rather worried about James. Remus suspected that insomnia was likely the cause of his increasingly odd behavior lately. James had suffered from it in first year when he was still getting used to separation from his parents, but hadn't shown any indication of trouble sleeping at night again until now.

This appeared to be the time when it resurfaced. After all, a common way of gauging the level of seriousness was to see if Sirius noticed the problem. If he did, you know the situation is bad. Remus sighed and headed up to bed. He was just too tired to do anymore.

n


End file.
